Emali Discipleship Weekend

This past weekend we traveled into Maasailand to work with the Maasia people there. We went to Oltinka Baptist Church for a weekend of discipleship training for pastors and elders in the area.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and began by setting up the generator, projector and sheets for the Jesus Film to be shown at dark. The church is a small simple church with dirt floors and wooden benches. As you can see they have decorated it with their best efforts.
Right off the bat, we began to meet the hard working and beautiful women of the church. Here is Gail helping the ladies in the tin kitchen as they prepare our goat meal for Saturday.
This is the house where we stayed for the weekend. The house is located behind the church out in the bush. The house of course has no electricity except by a generator and batteries. Even though it was very hot all weekend, the house was situated where a nice breeze would blow through most of the day. The missionaries that were living here just recently had to return to the states for medical purposes. Please pray for Jim and Linda Sellers, as Linda will be undergoing two surgeries on her knee.
The Maasai people are herdsmen and follow their cattle and goats around as they graze. Unfortunately, lately there has been so little rain there is very little to no areas for grazing and the livestock are beginning to die. Please pray for rain for Kenya for there are many areas where even the people are dying from starvation.
Friday night we showed the Jesus Film and God drew two more ladies into His Kingdom. Praise the Lord.

Early Saturday morning the discipleship conference began. Pastor Mike set up in the church with the pastors, elders and leaders from several local churches. Many of the leader of the churches were women as the majority of the church members are women. Please pray for the Maasai men to come to know Christ. Pastor Henry interpreted as Pastor Mike led the discipleship conference teaching about church doctrines and ordinances of the church. Pray for these pastors and church leaders as they continue to learn about God's Word.
Jeff and Neal led the young men of the church, while Dee, Gail and Jan worked with the children. Fortunately, the children and young men could all speak and understand English.
The conference went all day with a break for lunch when we were served goat stew with rice, which was very tasty.
On Sunday we attended worship service with them. Since many of the pastors and leaders had traveled a long way to get there, most of them stayed overnight and worshiped with us as well.

It is not every day that you meet a baby donkey on your way to church services. Isn't he adorable?

Even in Maasailand there are hymns to be sung throughout the service. Notice the glasses? We brought with us dozens of pairs of reading glasses to give out to those who needed them. It really blessed us to see them already in use.
Besides the hymns there was a special number done by the youth choir (of two) and the ladies did several songs along with their traditional dance moves. It was a small taste of heaven to hear them sing in their native tongue.
Pastor Mike preached the sermon with Pastor Henry interpreting.

After the service, everyone was so grateful for us having come to spend the weekend with them. Several of the ladies took their traditional beaded jewelry off and placed in on our wrists and around our necks. Please begin to pray for the people of this lovely fellowship, that they will grow in their walk with the Lord.

The Maasai women are very beautiful and very colorful. We thought you might like to see a few of the faces that you will be praying for.

FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY

Unfortunately many areas of Kenya have been experiencing severe drought. People have been unable to grow their regular crops due to the lack of rain and therefore many are going hungry. The church we attend, Ridgeways Baptist Church, partnered with another local church, Parklands Baptist, to collect food items to carry folks living in the dry areas. Ridgeways is a church that was planted by IMB missionaries. This year as the church celebrated it’s 21st anniversary, instead of having the usual dinner on the grounds, we were encouraged to bring in bags of maize meal for the food distribution. A great mission minded idea. The church collected 2652 bags of flour! This flour will be used to make ugahli, a very common and filling staple food eaten here in Kenya. Parklands Baptist contributed beans and oil.

On Friday, two large trucks were loaded with about seven tons of food. Then early Saturday morning we headed to Makueni to distribute the items.

Our truck was driven by Christopher, one of the mechanics at the Baptist Mission compound.

Makeuni is about three hours southeast of Nairobi and there has been no significant rain there since 2006. The closer we got to the area, the dryer things got. We observed that most of the rivers and all of the creek beds were dry. The roads were very dusty and dry and where we were headed was at the top of a mountain. Our mission truck did fine but unfortunately the second truck go stuck in the thick dust several times trying to get up the mountain and the men had to push it out.

When we arrived at the first school, there were already ladies gathering there. As we waited for the second truck to make it up the mountain, we began to sing songs with the ladies and before we knew it we were surrounded by many of the school students who ended up singing songs for us.

Jeff was moved by how many of the children had worn and tattered shoes if they had shoes at all. But there were plenty of smiles none the less.

Once the rest of the group had arrived, we met with the chief and had an official greeting and time of prayer together.

The group formed an assembly line and quickly unloaded a portion of each of the trucks and soon the room was full of bags of food.
Most of the group stayed there to distribute the food, while we traveled further down the mountain to another school to finish unloading our truck.
While the guys were unloading the truck the crowd began to gather.
Then suddenly several of the local women began helping to unload the bales. The African women are very strong and this was no big feat for them.
By the time the truck was unloaded a large crowd was gathered and waiting patiently in the shade. By the end of the day, it was reported that 1000 families had received some much needed food.